Page:Poet Lore, volume 27, 1916.djvu/142

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
128
THE BEST OF THE NEW BOOKS

THE LOST PRINCE, by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a romance of to-day, based on a mediaeval Serbian legend. The hero is the lost heir of a dynasty exiled for five centuries but unaware of his high destiny. It is a happy, winning story that will appeal to many. (The Century Co., $1.35 net.)

PROJECTIVE ORNAMENT, by Claude Bragdon is not solely a book of patterns—a mere phrase book—but rather the grammar of a new space-language derived from projective geometry. The two things which give the book its peculiar distinction and originality are the decorative use made of certain figures of four-dimensional geometry when projected into solid and into plane space, and the discovery—or perhaps the rediscovery—of the beautiful patterns which may be derived from the so-called "magic" lines of magic squares. (Manas Press, $1.50.)

CHINESE ART MOTIVES INTERPRETED, by Winifred Reed Treadwell, reflects the life that underlies Chinese art, which draws many of its motives from the intimate stories of that great country. The book is brightly written and presents a great deal of information in a manner calculated to interest the lay reader no less than the student of the subject. There are a number of excellent illustrations. (G. P . Putnam's Sons, $1.75 net.)

THE MASTERPIECES OF MODERN DRAMA, edited by John A. Pierce and Brander Matthews, contains in two volumes sixty plays—one volume devoted to foreign and the other to English and American plays. The plays are told in story form with excerpts from the dialogue; the work is exceedingly well done. (Doubleday, Page & Co., 2 vols., $2.00 net.)